Mammoth, by John Varley

Another book about time travel and pre-determination, yet despite what seems to be an upcoming obvious ending, has a twist to it that I did not predict, yet in hindsight should have seen coming. Very well done. Light entertainment --- don't expect deep thoughts to come out of it.

Howard Christian was not physically suited to being the only thing he had ever really wanted to be: a superhero. He knew it was childish and so he had never told anyone of his ambition, not even when he actually was a child. What he really wanted to do was swing through the conrete canyons of New York on fibers of mutated spider silk, or grow steel claws like his faborite X-Man mutant, Woverine.

The only thing that had ever been super abouat him, however, had been his brain. During one of the periods he had been in school he had been given an IQ test and the teachers had been soimpressed with the result they had sent hijm to another testing agency for a more accurate one. He scored 185. The man giving the test told Howard it was the highest score he had ever seen on that test. For years he had treasured that number 185, and had almost convinced himself it was the highest score ever... but eventually he learned of higher scores, of students who aced SAT tests on which he had managed only a 1540. So even in that he was not the best, not a true mutant, not superhero material.

But what was the Green Lantern without his ring, or Batman without his gadgets? Just guys in spandex suits, that's what. When he finally convinced himself of that he set about playing to his strengths instead of bemoaning his weaknesses. He began building his own Fortress of Solitude, his Bat Cave in the sky.

The difference between you and Joe Sixpack is the same difference between you and Lance Armstrong

When Mike and I climbed Alp D'Huez, we discovered how big the difference was between us and Lance Armstrong was. We climbed the hill in 89 minutes, while he did it in 39 the year before. (Of course, I have the excuse that I'm a few years older than he was when he did it, but age itself doesn't account for more than a minute or two, if that --- the fact that my touring bike weighs more probably accounts for another minute or two as well)

This article confirms it. My peak is probably around Lance's bottom. He will probably never get fat and overweight, and I would never ever make even Cat 3 as a bike racer. I remember when a friend of mine bought a bike in March and was winning races by June --- it was amazing. Fortunately, the benefits of exercise cuts across genetic boundaries.


Mr. Armstrong's numbers may not be much different from other elite racers, but he has the average cyclist beat by a mile. A good recreational rider could generate about 4 watts per kilogram, which would translate to a speed of about 20 miles an hour on a flat road. Mr. Armstrong, Dr. Coyle said, would be traveling at 34 miles an hour.

"The average recreational cyclist could not get up to 34 miles an hour and if you launched them at 34 miles an hour, let them latch onto a car, say, and then let them go and said, 'O.K., keep it,' they could not hold that speed for more than 5 or 10 seconds," Dr. Coyle said.

Mr. Armstrong's VO2 max is 85 milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute. An average untrained person has a VO2 max of 45 and with training can get it to 60.

"Lance would be 60 if he was a couch potato and never trained," Dr. Coyle said. "For the average person, their ceiling is Lance's basement."

Gut the South

Yea, verily, I say, gut the south. May they lose their industrial jobs due to poor education and lack of healthcare. May they lose their call center jobs to India due to outsourcing and lack of protection for workers. Unto their 7th generation, may they lose their health to global warming and air pollution. For their sins in electing George W. Bush, for their idiocy in supporting the Republicans, may they and their kin suffer for the next hundred years the way the slaves they once held suffered.

What made Toyota so sensitive to labor quality issues? Maybe we should discount remarks from the president of the Toronto-based Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, who claimed that the educational level in the Southern United States was so low that trainers for Japanese plants in Alabama had to use "pictorials" to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech equipment.

But there are other reports, some coming from state officials, that confirm his basic point: Japanese auto companies opening plants in the Southern U.S. have been unfavorably surprised by the work force's poor level of training.

There's some bitter irony here for Alabama's governor. Just two years ago voters overwhelmingly rejected his plea for an increase in the state's rock-bottom taxes on the affluent, so that he could afford to improve the state's low-quality education system. Opponents of the tax hike convinced voters that it would cost the state jobs.

But education is only one reason Toyota chose Ontario. Canada's other big selling point is its national health insurance system, which saves auto manufacturers large sums in benefit payments compared with their costs in the United States.

I was right, I was absolutely right!

During our tour of the Alps, Mike & I had a discussion about why French women are so thin. I theorized that it's the smoking that depresses the appetite and make them so skinny. Lo and behold, today's New York Times has an article about precisely this pheonomenon:

Experts blame factors ranging from urban sprawl to junk-food-laden diets for the increase in the number of Americans who are obese - defined as having a body mass index of over 30.

But smoking, or the decline of smoking, may also play a role. Nicotine is a stimulant, which means that smokers burn calories faster. And it's an appetite suppressant, which means that smokers eat less. Consider "French Women Don't Get Fat," the best selling book. Some critics said that the real reason chic Parisian women stayed trim while gorging themselves on croissants was that they smoked more than their American counterparts.

Indeed, conventional wisdom, soundly rooted in the personal experience of millions of former smokers and in several studies, has long held that short-term weight gain is the price to be paid for quitting smoking. But economists are increasingly applying their tools to measure the way monetary incentives, or disincentives, affect all sorts of human behavior - and hence the ability of government policy to alter it. And they've been wondering whether high cigarette taxes, which are intended to encourage people to quit smoking, may have the unintended effect of redirecting them from one form of unhealthy behavior to another....

...Over all, they found that "each 10 percent increase in the real price of cigarettes produces a 2 percent increase in the number of obese people, other things being equal."

I'll stop complaining about how expensive bikes are

I took my car in for a 75,000 mile service today. It needed new spark plugs, a new distributor cap, new plug wires, new transaxle fluid, new transaxle fluid filter, an oil change, an oil change filter. Worse, the intake manifold had to be removed to get at the spark plugs, so that cost me extra in labor. I was not happy at the $800 charge at the end, but what can I do? New cars cost a lot more.

The $200 I'm paying for a new Phil Wood rear hub (which will last well over 25 years) now seems really cheap by comparison. The Fuji Team SL doesn't seem too expensive, either.

And gas? Pah! They need to double the price of gas.

A disaster in the making

With those credits to his name, there's no way V for Vendetta's going to be a decent movie. Sigh.

Why I will never be an electrician

I bought a Shimano generator hub, built a wheel around it (Torrelli Master rims, Wheelsmith DB15 spokes, 36 holes). I then bought Lumotec light from John Bayley, cut off the spade connectors, and wired them to the lights. Or rather, I first connected them to the wrong lights! They were wired to the secondary instead of the primary. OK, no problem, I wired them to the primary. The lights worked great on the truing stand, but failed to light when I attached them to the bike. Later investigation showed that if I touched the dynashoe attachment to the truing stand, the light would fail as well, indicating an insulation problem. (Or so I thought)

Well, I tried every insulation trick I could think of: I tried electrical tape, I tried paint, I tried electrical tape and paint. Nothing worked. Actually, paint worked for all of 3 seconds, and then when I tightened down the bolt, it stopped working again. I gave up, and posted onto the Rivendell mailing list that I was selling this because I just couldn't solve the insulation problems.

Alex Wetmore asked me if I had tried swapping the wires. I tried it and indeed, that was the problem all along. That was it! So now I'm happy... All I need to do is to tape up the exposed wires and I'm set!

Bottom bracket creak?

For the last few rides, there as been an extremely annoying creak coming from the bottom bracket of my Fuji Team SL. Try as I might, I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. In frustration, I took it to the bike doctor to see if he could diagnose the problem. Well, he traced it to the quick release on the rear wheel, of all things! So he gave me an old quick release and so far, the problem seems to have completely gone away. Amazing, just amazing.

Tour of the Alps Trip Report

It's not complete, but good enough to post for readers of this blog.

No more SD500

It got smashed on the sailing trip, so now I am once again a film man! To be honest, it's a relief not to have a digital camera. One feels obliged to carry that darn thing around all the time, since it costs nothing to shoot. A film camera forces more deliberation, and that's always better if you want better pictures, as opposed to just more pictures.

Lea, Larry, Piaw, Dan 

Dan Hill 

Vianna, Lea, Larry 

Piaw describes something amusing 

Eric Case 

Dan stands with the Golden Gate Bridge behind him 

Dan & Larry cope with lines 

Vianna & Dan 

Eric Case behind the wheel 

10 speed chains are evil

Why use chains that require connecting pins? Buy an SRAM with the power link instead. No chain tool for assembly means you don't risk making mistakes even professional mechanics make and ruining your ride. For touring cyclists it is even more imperative that your parts be reliable, and hence I recommend 8-speeds and 8-speed chains.